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AGORA Facing new challenges: Realizing and practicing democracy
Start date: Sep 10, 2015, End date: Sep 9, 2017 PROJECT  FINISHED 

While topics like cultural division and political differences increasingly dominate the current debate in Europe our cooperation of four partner schools in Rome, Bucharest, Budapest and Stuttgart intends to provide the opportunity for our students to become more aware of, teach and actively practice values that unite Europeans. Contributing diverse democratic histories and cultural backgrounds one group of 15 to 20 six form students at each partner school first define democratic values such as freedom, active responsible participation, justice and integration. Then they research the opportunities their school offers to participate in school life and organize their own learning and exchange their results with the partner schools. Based on this intercultural investigation of classroom activities and teaching methods an international group of students develops a peer-to-peer teaching module on European values in English. The partner schools integrate this module created and managed by students into their curricular activities, provide opportunities for them to teach it, to evalute its effectiveness and present it to other schools or teacher training seminars. While the first project year aims at curricular innovation and a broader range of student-led learning activities, the second project year focuses on decision making structures in school and participation opportunities within the local communities. Exchanging their analyses of their own schools and national environments students develop a set of recommendations of how to put democracy at a European school into practice and get active outside. The will also teach the module developed in the first year at one of the partner schools abroad and evaluate it in an intercultural context. Turning their own ideas into action allows the teaching students to improve their English, experience the challenges involved in project management and devolop a better understanding of divers cultural backgrounds. This promotes their ability to deal with new and unexpected output in a responsible way. They actively experience democratic and social structures, are encouraged to show initiative, develop new ideas in a responsible and creative way and act as role models for younger students. Each partner school experiences the need to strengthen the European profile by letting students feel part of the European idea. The project also demands a level of entrepreneurship in terms of managing skills and empathy that that will enable students to contribute to an increasingly complex job market and make them more resilent faced with divisional ideologies. The peer-to-peer teaching module on active democratic participation and European values accompanied by a tool box of student-led learing methods is the core objective our intercultural learning is focused on. Multiplication at the partner schools, continued evaluation by students and teachers and publication ensures that it can be adapted to different political and cultural contexts, current needs and age groups in a long term perspective.

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